Bev Desjarlais

[International Circumpolar Community, April 11th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, once again I thank my colleague from Churchill River, Saskatchewan for bringing forth Motion No. 237.

Since it has been a while since the motion was last before the House, I would like to read it again. It reads:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should recognize the 55th parallel as the identified Canadian boundary for participation in the international circumpolar community.

The 55th parallel is very important to me. I have lived in Thompson, Manitoba for about 27 years. We recognize ourselves as being north of the 55th. We identify with northerners throughout the other provinces in Canada and throughout the world.

We have had the opportunity to meet with people and we deal with a lot of the same issues, the same problems. In a lot of cases our peoples are the same in those northern areas.

We find it somewhat interesting that within Canada we do not recognize the 55th parallel as being the boundary which should enable us to belong to the circumpolar group represented throughout the world.

This motion would certainly give us that opportunity. It would give the peoples of those northern communities the opportunity to meet with the peoples of the circumpolar regions of the world on a regular basis, and to discuss more formally how they could address the problems they may be having and the issues they may be dealing with.

I would suggest that at this crucial time in our history, with global warming, now more than ever it is important that the peoples of these regions come together to identify the problems which are resulting from global warming.

In the region of Churchill, Manitoba there is documented evidence that polar bears are not able to sustain their lives the way they have in the past because of global warming. The ice is not staying in long enough, so they cannot get out to eat enough seals to keep their weight on to get them through those long cold winters in northern Manitoba.

Now more than ever it is a crucial time to recognize that Canada, and those regions of Canada which are north of the 55th, should be part of that global family which is recognized as the circumpolar region.

The different peoples involved in these regions are similar throughout the world. Indigenous peoples in the Arctic areas have concerns about the effects on wildlife and themselves of the long range transport to the north of contaminants. Again, this would provide an opportunity for them to come together to address those concerns.

Motion No. 237 asks that the House, by adopting this motion, recognize that northern impacts are not limited to the 60th parallel box. That is the area which Canada recognizes as belonging to the circumpolar group.

It is Canada itself which is recognizing this, so we as parliamentarians have the opportunity to change that. I would hope that my colleagues would consider that. It is important to the northern region of Manitoba, my region, but I am sure it would be important as well to the other provinces of Canada.

[Aboriginal Affairs, April 11th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the minister of Indian affairs must know that one of the greatest factors affecting the education of aboriginal students is the inadequate housing and infrastructure.

This year's federal budget did little to address the issue. The auditor general has indicated that if these shortfalls are not addressed within the system, it will take 23 years for on reserve populations to reach education parity with the overall Canadian rate for high school.

Is the minister satisfied with that rate? Is it okay that it will take 23 years for on reserve aboriginal populations to reach educational parity with the rest of Canadian students?

[Sayisi Dene, April 11th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, poetry preserves the memory of our society. More than just a historical record, poetry preserves the feelings of those who live through historical events.

From the 1950s to the 1970s the Sayisi Dene of northern Manitoba were the victims of shameful treatment at the hands of the department of Indian affairs. Fully one-third of their people died from their forced relocation, an entire generation lost.

The poetry of Ila Bussidor captures the pain and loss of the Dene but also the strength and hope for healing. Today Ila Bussidor is the chief of the Sayisi Dene. She is leading her people in their fight for compensation. Her poetry speaks of night spirits, the spirits of those who died.

I dream of an eagle Forever coming to me with messages of strength Always in friendship and kindness. I touch the great sacred bird of spirit. He cares for me, each time I vision him. He lets me carry him. He gives me his sacred feathers. He walks with me. I am not afraid of him. I believe he is my guardian. The spirits of my father and mother Beside me in my times of pain.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1999, April 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleague to expand a bit on something I know he has already mentioned. That is the issue that one Canadian Alliance leadership candidate is suggesting, that the provinces should be collecting all the taxes. I am just wondering if my colleague can expand on that and comment on laying his trust in the Mike Harrises and Ralph Kleins of the world.

[Health, April 7th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, home care is more than just a more efficient and cost effective use of health care dollars. It allows patients to live in dignity in their own homes. Most home care users are seniors, but instead of a national home care system the Liberal government is giving them for profit American style health care.

The health minister said it takes more than money. I agree. We need a plan, so why has the government not come up with a plan in seven years? After seven years, why is it still blaming the provinces and making excuses? When will the government stop the excuses and the blaming of others and start doing what is right for seniors and all Canadians?

[Canada Post Corporation Act, March 31st, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I will just take a couple of minutes because I am somewhat disappointed that anybody in the House would not support sending the bill to committee.

I had the opportunity about a year and a half or two years ago to go with the Minister of Labour to Chile to meet on labour issues. We were meeting with different ministers from the Americas, the secretary of state for labour in the U.S. and numerous ministers from the Americas. I am talking about South America and some of the countries within it that have not the best labour standards in the world.

One of the things the Canadian group and the Canadian minister presented was that countries need to look at being able to address the changes in workforces where more and more workers are contract workers and are not protected with the same rights that workers who are under collective bargaining agreements and unions are protected. One of the declarations made was to look at ways of getting those contract workers the opportunity to be part of associations and collective bargaining. Once again we were seeing a situation where the government and the country were out there saying “Do as we preach, not as we do”.

I look to members within the House to support the rights of all workers, of all Canadians to be treated fairly and not to make rural workers second class citizens in this country. Give them the same rights as all other workers.

Let us send the bill to committee and give it the opportunity to be discussed. Let us not be afraid to let Canadians make the decision.

[Canada Transportation Act, March 31st, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I think I made it quite clear that I do not think the answer is to return to a totally regulated system, but I think there has been recognition through all of the committee meetings we had, 156 hours of meetings, meeting with numerous witnesses and numerous people, that there needs to be some regulation. Quite frankly, there was no question that what was going on between Canadian and Air Canada was not the answer to provide a stable airline industry in Canada.

These regulations could possibly be in the area of capacity, the same way we regulate internationally. We have a very strong international air service. Those things could have happened. Then we would have competition.

Competition for the sake of competition is not the answer. If that is the case, what we end up with is like the street markets in Tijuana, where the competition is to get the item down to the last penny. Canadians do not mind paying for a service, but they want to pay fairly.

What appears to be happening now, and the CTA has not been able to address it, is that costs have been going up. People have to say that they are not getting the service. We know that wages have not gone up. We know the workers took numerous cuts, right, left and centre, to make things work. They still were not able to bring down the prices. Part of that was because the foreign investment of American Airlines had a stranglehold on Canadian Airlines, which could not make some of the changes it should have been able to make.

As well, Air Canada, in a cutthroat type of approach, did not make any effort, so everyone dropped prices just to survive. No one survived and ultimately we were left with a dominant carrier that will be in a position to gouge the heck out of Canadians.

[Canada Transportation Act, March 31st, 2000]

My apologies. I do recognize there are no longer any Reform members. In all fairness, Reform has been somewhat critical of the people in the House but it has been some time that things have been up in the air about that party's name. It may take some time before people realize that they finally have come up with a finalized name.

In all fairness to Canadians, they voted for certain people at election time and they voted for them as belonging to a certain party. When that party saw the need to change in midstream, one wonders if perhaps people should have the right to change their vote.

The member from the Canadian Alliance commented on the airport authorities having too much power. I cannot help but reflect on everything that has happened in the last number of years with that party pushing the government to get out of regulating transportation and to turn over the airports to someone else. Now those airports have some authority and want to do things to try to make things work. That party was hand-in-hand with the government in divesting itself of authority over airports, but now it is complaining, perhaps because some of its friends are not making quite what they thought they would because the airports are operating independently, trying to survive.

My hon. colleague as well mentioned that her party did not want to see only one airline. Had it not wanted to see only one airline in Canada, where the heck was the official opposition for the past number of years as Canadian and Air Canada struggled? Why was it not saying “Put some regulations in and get some kind of capacity controls to make sure that these airlines can survive”? Then we might have been able to see more than one airline operate in Canada. We might still have Canadian and Air Canada, ensuring competition.

There is the issue of increased foreign ownership. Is that the answer to everything? American Airlines increased its investment in Canadian Airlines. Did that save it? I do not see it here. Has increased foreign ownership helped western farmers? Tell western farmers how selling off the railways and increased foreign ownership has improved producers' profitability. It sure improved the profits for the rail lines.

The member also mentioned that passengers have to sit and wait at the airlines because of overbooking. Some people do not get on the plane if everybody shows up. The business argument is, that is good business. They do not want to leave if the seats are not filled.

Does anyone here want to reflect on all of the times the Canadian Alliance members have commented that we have to do whatever is best for business and that businesses should be able to do whatever they want to make a profit? Sometimes we have to eat our words and recognize that it was not the right way to make things better for Canadians.

If my Canadian Alliance colleague is truly concerned about passenger rights, I look forward to that party's support for a passenger bill of rights and amendments to this bill which will reflect those concerns.

Despite our opposition to this bill, the New Democratic Party will make an honest effort to improve it. Canadians deserve no less than for us to do our best to improve this bill in whatever way we can.

I will be proposing a number of amendments to fix some of the shortcomings I have identified to make this bill address the very real concerns of Canadians.

[Canada Transportation Act, March 31st, 2000]

Madam Speaker, today I am speaking on behalf of the New Democratic Party in opposition to the bill as it is. We have agreed that we will do what we can to get the bill to committee as quickly as possible, recognizing the seriousness of addressing the issues concerned with the merger of our two major airlines and the reality of there being one dominant carrier in Canada.

I must say that I was disappointed with the Liberal government on this bill. As the New Democratic Party representative on the transport committee I worked very hard on this issue as did all the committee members from all the parties. Last fall the committee heard from literally dozens of expert witnesses on this issue.

I was disappointed but not surprised that the Liberal government and the transport minister ignored what Canadians had been saying all these months. Instead it came up with a bill that fails to address the key concerns of Canadians. Even the minister, I know, recognized that the bill is far from perfect, but I do not think there is anything wrong with our looking for that perfection when we get to committee and fixing the bill where it has fallen short.

The government still does not understand the basic problem facing Canada's airline industry. Our airline industry has gone from crisis to crisis since the Mulroney government deregulated it in 1987.

Deregulation has been a disaster for Canadians. The cost of flying in Canada has gone up massively since deregulation began. Ticket price increases have been rising faster than inflation. The overall cost of flying has gone up a whopping 76% since 1992.

That is not what was supposed to happen under deregulation. Bay Street lobbyists said that deregulation would bring competition which would drive prices down, not up. They said there would be more airlines flying to more destinations than ever before. So where is the competition?

It has been almost 13 years since deregulation began and we have fewer airlines, not more. Deregulation has resulted in fewer airlines flying to fewer destinations and Canadians are being charged more for those tickets. This is what happens when we let market forces take the place of smart public policy.

The New Democratic Party is not against markets. Often when we criticize the government for pandering to the market, people say we are against the market. That is not the case. We are not. We recognize to have a strong country we need a strong market economy, but a healthy market is not the only thing we need for a healthy country. We need to balance a strong market with sensible public policy.

That is not the ideology of the Liberal government. Call it corporatism, call it laziness, call it lack of vision, call it whatever we will. The Liberal government refuses to accept that the market alone cannot solve every problem. When it comes to the airline industry the government cannot see the forest for the trees. This is what happens when we are dealing strictly with that ideology. The Liberal government's uncritical faith in the free market blinds it to that reality.

This is the reality. Under deregulation Canadians have less choice and are paying more for flying. The airlines have cut service to small and medium size communities across the country. The government had to spend millions of dollars to bail out Canadian Airlines and then it wound up collapsing anyway. There have been job cuts and wage cuts for airline employees. By anyone's standards deregulation has been a public policy disaster. Yet the Liberal government still clings to this policy with the blind faith of ideology.

I want to talk about the effect of deregulation on my own riding of Churchill. Few areas of the country are more expensive to fly to than rural and northern Manitoba. It costs more to fly from Thompson to Winnipeg than it does to fly from Halifax to Vancouver. Airfares have skyrocketed and passengers are not satisfied with the service quality and availability. What this demonstrates is the Liberal government's short-sightedness in letting market forces replace public policy.

Under the logic of the market, the airlines have made decisions to maximize their profits by charging the highest fares they can get away with without concentrating on service. This makes perfect sense from a narrow market point of view but makes no sense at all from a public policy point of view.

Market driven decisions in remote areas kill economic growth. They deter people from moving to rural and northern areas and setting up businesses there. If the Liberal government was looking at the big economic picture, it would see this and do what it could to keep airfares and the cost of doing business in remote areas down. But the Liberal government is not looking at the big picture. It is ignoring the fact that deregulation is killing jobs and businesses in rural and northern Canada.

It gets worse. Not only has deregulation nailed ordinary Canadians with higher airfares and less service, not only has it killed jobs and hurt rural and northern Canada, it has not been good for the airlines. From the minute deregulation kicked in, Air Canada and Canadian Airlines were in a death match that has taken a huge toll on both companies.

Competition can be a good part of the market economy or it can be destructive. We have to distinguish between healthy competition and destructive competition. Healthy competition delivers low prices and better services to the consumers. Destructive competition does the opposite and leads to monopolies. Need I say more?

The competition between Air Canada and Canadian Airlines was the destructive kind. As we have seen, it led to higher prices, not lower prices. It resulted in less service to communities, not more.

Healthy competition thrives in a stable market with rules and boundaries. Under deregulation there are no rules and competition turns destructive.

New Democrats want to see healthy competition in Canada's airline industry. That is why in the minority report I called for modern regulations to promote competition and protect the Canadian public. I do not want to see a return to the kind of regulation we had 20 years ago. Over-regulation is as bad for competition as is deregulation. What Canada's airline industry needs is the balanced approach. This bill does not provide the balanced approach to Canada's airline industry needs.

The government's approach once again is selling Canadians short. At best this bill is a baby step. We are facing a monopoly in our airline industry, a monopoly caused by deregulation, and the Liberal government will not let go of the very cause of the monopoly. This monopoly is an unprecedented threat to Canadian consumers. If there was ever a time to protect the public interest, now is that time, yet the Liberal government has to be dragged away from regulation kicking and screaming.

The transport minister has said that this bill would protect the Canadian public. Sometimes something is so ridiculous that it seems funny. This was one of those times. Saying this bill as it is will protect the public from a monopoly is like giving someone one boot when it is 40 below and saying it will keep his feet warm.

That is not to say that this bill is all bad. Before I talk about what is wrong with it, I am going to talk about what is good about it. The bill implements four recommendations from the transport committee that I supported and fought to have included in the report.

First, it doubles the amount of notice an airline has to give the community before it abandons it.

Second, it improves the official languages section of the Air Canada Act.

Third, it gives travel agents the right to negotiate their commissions collectively with the dominant airline. This will help keep travel agents in business and continue to provide affordable service to the public. One message which was loud and clear was that travel agents are a critical and valuable link to the air transportation system. As a committee, I was extremely pleased that we all agreed and that the government implemented this within the bill.

Fourth, the bill gives the Competition Bureau expanded power to stop predatory pricing. I want to talk a bit about this fourth point because I like to give credit where credit is due.

One of the big problems with a monopoly is the dominant airline can crush any small competitors that come along and try to compete with it. With broader powers to prevent predatory competition, the Competition Bureau should be able to prevent this from happening. This will eventually make it possible for the market to correct itself and bring a return to some form of competition.

I recognize the minister in his statement indicated that if there had been intervention earlier on, we might not have been in the situation we are in right now. I commend the government for this part of the legislation.

I also want to talk about the extended notice period for community abandonment. This is also something I fought for in committee and I am glad to see the government has accepted this recommendation. However, extending the notice period alone does not go nearly far enough to protect small communities. All it does is give communities more warning before an airline pulls out.

It is important that there be a mechanism to make sure small and medium size communities in Canada have decent service. This needs to be done in a way that balances the public interest with the market. It is not reasonable to expect an airline to lose money hand over fist serving a community.

At the same time, airlines have a public trust to make sure all Canadians have reasonable service. The government has a responsibility to make sure the airlines live up to that trust. Operating an airline in our country is a privilege. The airlines have a responsibility to serve small and medium size communities even if they do not make quite as much profit as they do from serving Montreal and Toronto for example.

The Liberal government is not making Air Canada live up to its public trust with this bill. All it does is force Air Canada not to abandon any communities for three years. After that it will be open season for community abandonment. There is no review mechanism to make sure these abandonments are justified. This is another example of putting blind faith in a market.

The other area the Liberal government has bungled is that of airfares. This is an area that most Canadians are concerned about as a result of a monopoly. The anti price gouging measures in this bill, if we can call them that, will only be in effect for two years, possibly four. These measures are not even that strong. The Liberal government is relying on the Canadian Transportation Agency to regulate fares and is giving it slightly wider powers to do it. This is not going to work. The CTA is already mandated to control fares. It has been completely ineffective until now.

Does the Minister of Transport think he can just wave his magic wand and overnight the CTA will become effective? All this bill does is it broadens the CTA mandate slightly and gives it the ability to be a bit proactive for the next two years. Expecting the CTA to stop this new airline monopoly from price gouging is like sending one person with a shovel to stop the avalanche. There must be ongoing measures in the bill to prevent price gouging.

The third major flaw with the bill is in the area of labour relations. I have often wondered if the government has had any respect for unions or the democratic right of collective bargaining. This government has used back to work legislation to stop legal work stoppages more than any other government. This is the government that fought like mad to keep from giving pay equity, simple equality, to its own employees. It is no wonder it has completely ignored the thorny issues that this bill represents in the area of labour issues.

The bill needs to ensure that labour disputes, including the issues relating to seniority, can be dealt with in a timely manner. We need to ensure that airline unions are in a position to bargain effectively during this restructuring. We need to ensure that disruption in service with this new dominant carrier does not bring the country to a standstill.

The Reform Party would suggest that we do not allow the airline employees to have the right to collective bargaining or the right to strike. We need to ensure that the present Canada Industrial Relations Board has enough resources to give any disputes resulting from this merger top priority without it affecting any of its other cases. That is what we need to do to make sure that this works.

At the end of the day this all comes down to priorities. All that Canadians want from their airline industry is safety, affordability and decent service to communities. If the Liberal government shared these priorities, it would have done something meaningful to address them in this bill. Instead the Liberal government is turning an airline monopoly loose on Canadians with little protection for consumers, workers and communities.

I cannot help but make a point of commenting on some of the thoughts that came from one of my opposition colleagues and that would be the Reform member.

[Aboriginal Affairs, March 31st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

The aboriginal healing fund is supposed to help communities recover from the pain of abuse at residential schools. Unfortunately, few aboriginal people in Manitoba have been able to access the fund. Of the 104 projects funded by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, only two have been in Manitoba.

I know the aboriginal healing fund is at arm's length from the government. That is why I have written to the foundation, asking it to fix this inequality and fund more projects in Manitoba.

Will the minister join me in the name of healing and fairness? Will he call on the Aboriginal Healing Foundation to ask it to fund more projects in Manitoba?